He considered his reply.
"Mrs. Westbrook, I have not come here to inquire into General Westbrook's conduct while he was alive, further than is necessary to aid me in finding who is responsible for his death. Of still greater importance than this is the necessity of freeing your daughter from the cloud of suspicion which now rests upon her—if it be possible."
Something very like a sob escaped from the woman's tightly compressed lips.
"Can—can—you—you—can you save Joyce," she faltered, "without dishonoring my—without dishonoring the dead?"
Could he? He weighed his answer carefully, and when he finally spoke it was to make an attempt at reassuring this agitated woman.
"You know, I suppose, that General Westbrook was a joint administrator of the Castillo estate?"
"Yes."
"Well, then," he spoke with much earnestness, "so far as my investigations have been carried into the mutual affairs of your husband and Alberto de Sanchez, not a circumstance has appeared that is not strictly honorable. The matter has been gone into fully; the records are correct in every particular—full and complete—and nothing whatever points to anything not strictly honest and fair."
Again Converse was surprised. Mrs. Westbrook suddenly sank into a chair and burst into tears.